Blizzard Entertainment's Overwatch League begins its play for global sports fans

Star Casino in Sydney was crammed with thousands of fans, all roaring at the screens as Australia took on Japan at Overwatch earlier this year.

by
Seamus Byrne

One of the world's biggest video games publishers, Blizzard Entertainment, is poised to kick off its ambitious attempt to take eSports to mainstream sports fans around the world with a global league for its hit game Overwatch.

The Overwatch League has its inaugural pre-season matches this Thursday, marking the beginning of a long-term venture with hundreds of millions of dollars invested in its success in capturing the attention of sports fans.

With a number of Overwatch tournaments, including a 32-country World Cup event, already completed, the league is Blizzard's attempt to attract new fans into the world of eSports by presenting it like traditional sports competitions.

It will have teams attached to cities around the world (although mostly America at launch) to develop home-town loyalties and cross-town rivalries, such as San Francisco Shock, Los Angeles Valiant, London Spitfire, Seoul Dynasty and the Shanghai Dragons, and teams' characters in the game will wear uniforms.

Blizzard Entertainment's Nate Nanzer, commissioner of the Overwatch League, says gaming has become the core entertainment experience for a generation, and the league represents a natural progression.

Speaking with The Australian Financial Review, Blizzard Entertainment's Nate Nanzer, commissioner of the Overwatch League, says gaming has become the core entertainment experience for a generation, and the league represents a natural progression.

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"It is the same as for people who play golf or tennis, when you spend a lot of time doing an activity, you want to watch the best in the world compete at this thing that you love," Nanzer says.

"A lot of business leaders still don't understand that video games are a mainstream activity now. Just software sales globally in video games are now over $US100 billion annually and over two billion people play games of some form every year. It's a huge, mainstream activity."

For many, watching eSports on streaming platforms like Twitch.tv is becoming preferable to turning on broadcast TV to watch a traditional sport. Earlier this year, local plans emerged from Seven West Media to try and get in on the trend with the launch an eSports league sponsored by St George Bank.

Despite big crowds for major events, most of eSports viewership watches online on sites like Twitch.
Uriel Espinoza/ESL

Overwatch is a team-based first-person action game that has already received widespread critical acclaim and significant financial success.

It launched in May 2016, and Superdata market intelligence estimated its earnings for that year alone were $US585 million. The game's last reported statistics say it reached 35 million players globally in October.

"I think what we've put together mirrors what a traditional sports league would look like," Nanzer says.

"In terms of franchise spots, revenue sharing and all the rights associated with that."

12 teams feature in the inaugural 2018 season of the Overwatch League.

Industry estimates suggest team owners were required to invest in the ballpark of $US20 million to secure a team.

Of the 12 teams featuring in the inaugural 2018 season, nine are from the US, with Seoul, Shanghai and London making up the overseas contingent.

It has big-name investors along for the ride as well, including some from the realms of traditional sports.

They include Robert Kraft, CEO of Kraft Group and NFL's New England Patriots; Jeff Wilson, COO of the New York Mets baseball franchise; Chinese internet company Netease; and successful eSports investors like Andy Miller, Founder of NRG Esports.

"They knew this is a huge business opportunity," Nanzer says.

"A lot of brands are dying to figure out how to talk to 12 to 25-year-old males. The only place to find them is in our content."

But when it came to deciding which applicants for team ownership were given the thumbs up by Blizzard, Nanzer says it came down to their capabilities as audience builders.

"The owners from traditional sports have done an incredible job building huge fan bases around their teams," he says.

"We can make great eSports content, but things like local sponsorship, local marketing, ticket sales, all those things are really complementary capabilities to what we bring to the table."

Becoming a pro

While there are no Australian teams in the first season of Overwatch League, last week Blizzard announced it is launching local region Open Division and Contenders division competitions to give local talent a chance to get noticed by professional teams.

Blizzard calls this the "Path to Pro", opening up a clear road for all players to fight their way into the spotlight.

"How many kids grow up wanting to play for the Sydney Swans, right? You have that sort of dream and the very clear steps in traditional sports where I can join an academy team and move my way up the ranks and some day play in the AFL or in the EPL in England or the NFL in the US," Nanzer says.

In recent months, Australian sports organisations have started to take eSport development seriously.

Both the Adelaide Crows and the Sydney Cricket Ground have announced involvement in eSport team development and training initiatives, so the groundwork is well under way for Australian teams to start evolving to compete on the world stage.

This week's pre-season is Blizzard's chance to spin up the full pro-league broadcast systems for the first time and make sure the Blizzard Arena in Los Angeles is ready for prime time. And at that point the preparation dance ends and the fans, and investors, will be watching how things develop very closely.

"It's all starting to become very real," Nanzer says. "We'll have some limited merch available in the pre-season, too. Fans should be able to get some Overwatch League jerseys under the tree in time for Christmas."